STAGHORN SUMACH; HAIRY SUMACH (Rims hirta, Sudw .), 45 to 35 feet. Low, flat-topped tree with stout, erect, fork ing branches. Bark smooth, brown, thin, separating into squarish scales; branches smooth, marked with orange colored lenticels and leaf scars; twigs coated with fine, thick, soft, brown hairs. Wood brown, coarse-grained, soft, brittle; pith abundant in twigs. Roots fleshy, sending up shoots to form thickets on gravelly banks. Leaves pinnate, compound, velvety, dark green above, pale to white beneath, leaflets narrow lanceolate, tapering to apex, coarsely cut-toothed on margins, 11 to 31 on stout petiole, turning to yellow and scar let in autumn, fading to crimson and purple. Flowers in
dense, hairy, pyramidal, erect clusters, greenish, the two sorts on separate trees. Individual flowers very small, with parts distinct; staminate clusters larger than pistillate. Fruit on fertile trees in compact, large, red panicles, of small, globular, thin-fleshed drupes, with skin coated with acrid hairs, and containing a brown, bony seed. Persistent through winter. Dist.: Southern Canada west to Winnipeg; south to Georgia and Mississippi. Planted as a ground cover for rocky, broken ground in parks and estates. Wood used for walking-sticks, etc. Bark and roots yield tannin for dyeing.